


Danny is a Spork

by LunagaleMaster



Series: Ecto-Shots [3]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: #Dannyhastoomanytitles, Friendship, Gen, Hero-Complexes Suck, Humor, Metaphors, Sporks, This is NOT a crack fic, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 13:22:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4480847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunagaleMaster/pseuds/LunagaleMaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A typical day at Casper High turns atypical with a lunch time conversation on the relation between halfas and sporks.</p><p>Not a crack fic</p>
            </blockquote>





	Danny is a Spork

**Author's Note:**

> I'm saying it again, just in case. THIS IS NOT A CRACK FIC! Yes, it seems like it, but that's because metaphors being metaphoring and I want to grab people's attention. Also, this was first posted in Fanfiction.net under the same name for both the writer and the title of the work. I'm transferring my other work over here, so I can get some feedback. So, tell me what you think :D  
> Anyway, warning time.  
> 1)Minor D/S but it's at pre-PP canon levels  
> 2)Minor spoilers for most of the series  
> 3)Dash is a major jerk
> 
> Happy reading!

It had been a typical day at Casper High. The A-listers flaunted their popularity. The geeks had been shoved into lockers. Of course, Danny Fenton came late into class, getting a detention from one very unhappy, yet subdued English teacher. The only “excitement” that happened was a less than thrilling ghost attack from the annoyingly, persistent Box Ghost who didn’t get a “BEWARE!” in before being shoved into a Fenton Thermos.

Yes, it was a typical day at Casper High and, for the moment at least, it was a typical lunch….

For the most part.

“They gave us… sporks?” Team Phantom sat at their usual spot in the cafeteria. Tucker Foley, resident techno geek and forever meat lover, stared at the offending utensil with slight confusion, his spork in one hand and his trusty PDA in the other. Across from him the ultra-recyclo vegetarian and sole goth at Casper High, Sam Manson, raised an eyebrow at him.

“Is there a problem with it?” She took a bite of her salad with one of said sporks.

“Well yeah! It messes with the balance in the cafeteria.” He put the spork down, looking around as if to find some evidence of imbalance before glaring at the goth. “You can’t just combine spoons and forks. I’m surprised the Lunch Lady hasn’t come and blown something up by now.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “Tucker, the Lunch Lady only comes when you change the menu, I hardly think this qualifies.” She sat up a bit straighter, smirk gracing her lips. “I, for one, am all for the change. Using sporks instead of both forks and spoons means less plastic wasted at each meal.”

“But you can’t even pick anything up with them! It just falls off the end.” As if to prove his point, he picked up the spork and tried to stab his meatloaf only for it to fall back onto his plate. “See!”

“First of all Tucker that abomination couldn’t even be picked up with a regular fork. You had to use a spoon before. Second of all,” She continued, interrupting Tucker’s rant on the supremacy that meat had over deadly vegetables. “If you had a salad for once instead of eating poor defenseless animals, maybe you could pick something up with your spork.”

Tucker put down the spork once more and crossed his arms, careful not to crush his precious PDA. “Danny, help me out here. Tell the woman that sporks are useless….Danny?” He blinked, looking at the halfa in question while ignoring the glare he got from Sam. “Hey Danny, you alright there?”

Said boy groaned before lifting his head from his plate, blinking blearily at his best male friend that sat across from him. The half-ghost boy/town hero/public enemy number one/Savior of the Ghost Zone/’wow this guy has a lot of titles’/younger brother/school loser/A-lister punching bag had mashed potatoes covering right side of his face as well as a bit of meatloaf stuck to his chin. Danny’s blue eyes looked only semi-focused around him, half lidded with a speck of mashed potatoes on his right lashes. The scene would have been funny if it weren’t for the deep bags under the fifteen year old’s eyes and the unhappy expression running across his lips.

“Yeah, perfectly fine, Tuck.” The boy yawned widely like the cat that Vlad desperately needed and placed his left elbow on the lunch table. He then leaned the clean side of his face into his hand, his face teetering uncertainly on the raised palm as if his face would fall directly back into the mashed potatoes at a moment’s notice. Both his friends frowned. “Perfectly fine.” He mumbled.

“Dude, your head was in the mashed potatoes.” Tucker countered.

“They made a comfortable pillow.” Sam rolled her eyes before giving Danny her napkin. He mumbled a quick thanks before starting to clean the mess that was his face. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave the obviously sleep deprived boy a glare that forced him to listen.

“How long were you out last night after we left?” Her voice was deadly serious.

Last night, the trio had done their usual patrol while Jazz covered for Danny in case their parents asked about his whereabouts. As usual, Tucker and Sam left at midnight while Danny finished the patrol until one… or at least that was the plan. The plan usually was compromised more often than not. Danny sighed in frustration as he scraped at a particularly hard to get off piece of potato on his cheek bone.

“I don’t remember. What time does my alarm clock go off again?” Sam and Tucker simultaneously groaned.

“Danny…”

“Dude, you really need to get some sleep…. In your own bed!” Tucker cut Danny off before he could reply that he had a perfectly good hour nap at Mr. Lancer’s class and during lunch. The halfa huffed, put down the napkin, and finally picked up his spork, poking at questionable meatloaf.

“I was going to but..” Sam raise her hand, cutting him off, before eyeing the lunch room around her. After she finished her scan, she nodded leaning in as to not let anyone hear. The other two leaned in as well.

“Skulker?” She whispered. Danny nodded.

“Yeah, he came right when I was about to head home.” The hamster wheel in his mind caught up to what Sam had said. He turned to look at Sam. “Wait, how did you know that?”

Tucker blinked. “Yeah, how did you know that, Sam?”

“I saw the hunk of junk’s outline in the road on the way to school today.” She smirked then looked back seriously at Danny, whispering once more as to not be overheard. “What took so long anyway? He usually isn’t much of a threat anymore.”

“Yeah, I know. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t added his new weapon.”

“Another one?” Sam asked. Danny nodded.

“Yeah, it was some kind of heat shield to counter my ice core. Every time I tried to get close, it felt like I would melt.” Tucker winced sympathetically.

“Ouch.”

Danny sighed. “Tell me about it. I finally just short circuited his shield with a well-aimed ecto-blast and then kicked his butt.” The ghost-boy snickered at the memory before leaning back to his original position. The smirk turned to neutral expression as he stifled a groan from the pounding headache that roared in his brain. The other two leaned back as well, catching the pain that ran across the halfa’s face. They frowned.

Trying to ignore their looks (he hated that they always had to worry about him. They shouldn’t have to.), he stared at the utensil in his hands for a good thirty seconds before smirking a bit. “You know, sporks aren’t so bad.”

Sam grinned triumphantly. “See Tucker! Danny understands how using less utensils helps to minimize the waste that we sent into the environment.”

Danny snorted. “No, sporks help minimize the amount of energy that I need to pick up a spoon when I want to eat my meatloaf.” To prove his point, he scooped up a part of the meatloaf, taking a quick bite then stabbed at the mashed potatoes as a small hunk came out of the little pile on his plate.

“You’re still going to eat that?” Sam asked incredulously.

The halfa shrugged. “Why not? Food is food.” Tucker’s lips curled into a smile.

“Yeah, even if was used as a pillow.” The two boys laughed while Sam shook her head, exasperated at her two friends.

“You guys are disgusting.”

“We try.” They chimed together. Sam once more rolled her eyes before freezing and giving Danny the oddest expression. The halfa noticed her staring, and shifted semi-uncomfortably under her gaze, a slight blush unknowingly rising on his cheeks.

“Umm… Sam… are you okay?” She stared some more, her eyes occasionally shifting to the plain white spork in his hand before shifting back to his face. Danny tried to give Tucker a look to ask silently “what the heck happened to Sam?’, but his ever helpful best friend tapped continuously on his PDA, seemingly unaware of the situation. Only a small knowing smirk gave away that he knew what was going on around him.

The staring continued for a moment before the goth suddenly straightened up, crossed her arms, and said to the ghost boy in the most serious of expressions that has ever had the chance to grace her face.

“Danny… you’re a spork.”

Both boys blinked then blinked some more. They looked at each other for a moment then back at the girl. At the moment, a small blush had risen on her face, presumably from their reactions. Tucker was the first to recover.

“Sam… I think you’re losing your touch. I mean... that insult didn’t even make any sense.”

“No, I’m serious.” The day has finally come. Danny realized. He had turned one of his friends insane. He had to access the damage.

“Sam has all the ghost fighting finally gotten to you because if it has we can always go talk to Jazz.” Sam glared once more. “Or not...”

The vegan huffed. “Guys think about it. A spork is half spoon and half fork. While you are... well you know.” She made a wild gesture that did not remotely resemble anything to with a ghost or boy, but the message had been sent. The boys looked at each other more. Danny raised an eyebrow at Tucker, while the techno geek only gave a small shrug as a response.

It was time to try to reason with the insane. Joy.

“A lot of things are half and half. It doesn’t mean I’m… it doesn’t mean that I’m like everything that’s half and half.” Sam shook her head.

“Think about it, sporks aren’t just half and half, they’re both a spoon and a fork and can be equally used as both. Like you can be… human and a ghost.” She whispered the end portion of his statement. Danny’s eyes widened in understanding (glad that his friend wasn’t entirely insane thanks to him). Sam wasn’t insane. Creative, but not insane.

Must be from writing goth poetry.

Tucker didn’t have the same revelation that Danny did was still skeptical of Sam’s sanity. “Can’t use a spork to pick up a piece of meat. And Danny is not a spork!”

“But a halfa doesn’t exactly fit in with either world.” Danny countered. Tucker looked at him incredulously, slight betrayal on his face, while Sam looked on amusingly. The techno geek shook his head rapidly.

“Come on Danny, are you really taking this spork thing seriously? I mean Sam is a little...” He twirled his finger around his ear in the universal ‘this person is cray! cray!’ gesture.

“I’m still here! I’m not crazy! You just don’t want to appreciate the spork!”

“They’re sporks!”

Sam gestured to her bemused halfa friend. “And that’s Danny.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense!” Danny wasn’t sure who was crazier, the vegan who compared him to a spork or the meat lover who was gesturing widely with his PDA that looked like he was about to jump over the table to attack.

Sam glared at Tucker with the intensity of a thousand basilisks. “Look at the facts, sporks are underappreciated and not as well-known as forks and spoons. Danny, even with saving everyone every single day,” Her voice seemed to rise too high. _Oh no._ Danny thought. _This won’t end well._ “Is still either seen as an enemy or as the school loser who can’t even take a punch from a jerk who doesn’t have anything better to do than make other people’s lives miserable!” Her shout echoed across the cafeteria disturbing the lunches of every branch of the high school social hierarchy.

Danny repressed a groan as he counted backwards mentally. _Three, two, one..._

“MANSON!” Danny flinched at the loud noise (his headache had not ceased in the slightest) as he turned to see ex-bane-now-major-annoyance of his existence. Dash, the football star (with his accomplice Kwan) glared at Sam before turning to Danny to a reason only known to the cruel deity that put the target on his back.

“Are you trying to test me, Fenton?” The halfa’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t even done anything this time! Yeah, he would have covered or at least taken Dash’s wrath for Sam, but did the A-lister really have to target Danny for everything?

Before Danny could even give a proper response, Sam gave her best death glare at the bully before yelling at him. “Hey, _I_ was the one who said something not Danny!”

Dash snorted. “Yeah, but he’s your boyfriend. He should control you better, Goth Girl!”

“HE/SHE IS NOT MY BOY/GIRLFRIEND!” The two shouted simultaneously. Danny crossed his arms over his chest, giving the bully a glare. Not his best glare mind you because that would be the ‘scary eyes’ as Vlad had once eloquently put it, but it was still a pretty good one.

“Besides, Sam would kill me if I tried to control her life like that.” Sam smirked.

“You got that right.” Dash rolled his eyes, his mocking smirk growing on his face. He puffed up his chest to make himself look even bigger than before as if to intimidate him with his size.

Danny had to resist the urge to roll his eyes.

“Yeah, right. Loser lovebirds.”

“WE’RE NOT LOVEBIRDS!”

Dash and the A-listers laughed at them. After a moment, he pretended to wipe his eyes with tears of laughter before shooting the two a grin. “You’re not just losers. You’re dumb losers! Here!” Suddenly, the bully took Danny’s tray and poured the remainder of Danny’s lunch on the halfa’s head. Dash, adding insult to injury, placed the tray on top, completing the pile like a topping on a Christmas tree. The football players of the A-lister gang laughed at the boy’s expense while the teen in question was using all his will power not to attack the football star right then and there. If his eyes hadn’t been covered in meatloaf and mashed potatoes, they probably would have been seen flashing glowing green.

“Maybe this will go to your brain. They’ll be hope for you yet!” Dash laughed once again, turning around as he led his posy away. “See you later, Fentonia!” As the jocks walked back to their table, Danny counted backwards in his head, calming himself down. After he finished, he let his muscles relax and looked at Tucker, taking the plate off his head as he did so.

“Can I have your napkin?” Tucker snorted dryly and gave Danny his entire stack of napkins. As Danny cleaned up, Tucker looked at Sam. To say the lone girl of the group was angry was an understatement. She glared around the lunchroom, stopping anyone from looking at the group with quick vigilance, not even Valerie dared to come over. With one look, she created a sphere of isolation from the rest of the lunch room, letting their group eat once more in relative peace.

Though Sam was still a ticking time bomb that Tucker realized that he had to idiotically defuse. With a quick prayer, he went in for the plunge.

“You know, you do realize that he just proved your point on how much of a jerk he is.” Explosion occurring in three...two…one…

“I can’t stand him! Or this patriarchal masculine centered society! For once I just wish that Dash would just throw a punch at me-“ Danny suddenly interjected on her rant.

“Sam _please_ just drop it. Dash isn’t worth it. Besides, we’re trying _not_ to attract attention, remember?” Sam stopped in her tracks at the pleading look on his face. Chunks of meatloaf was still stuck to his hair and small specks mashed potatoes dotted his face, a large pile stuck on the end of his nose. The rage inside her heart flared up once more, but… Sam repressed it with a sigh.

“Fine, but we’re so going to Clockwork and borrowing his time staff later, so we can slam Dash into a wall... for five hours.” Danny chuckled and continued trying to get the meatloaf out of his hair. Sam turned towards the halfa and started wiping his face with her napkin, starting with the chunk of mashed potatoes on his nose.

“That won’t be necessary, Sam. Karma says that Dash will get what’s coming to him when he’s out of college.” He tapped on his PDA, repressing a smirk at his two best friend’s oblivious actions.

“Why college? Whoops, sorry Sam.” Danny smiled goofily when a piece of meatloaf fell off his hair and landed on the girl’s thigh. Her cheeks turned slightly green as she used her napkin to banish the piece of meatloaf away from her vegan self. Danny could have sworn she was cursing at him in Esperanto under her breath, though it might have been his imagination. Tucker shook his head at the two and continued.

“Dash isn’t good enough to be a professional football player. That’s when sweet, harsh reality will hit him in the face.” Danny frowned, stopping in the middle of getting a particularly sticky piece of meatloaf from his bangs.

“Tucker…Just because we don’t like Dash, doesn’t mean we want his life to be miserable.”

“Doesn’t he want to make _your_ life miserable?” The boy gestured to the mess that Danny was in. The halfa opened his mouth to give a retort, but seeing how he was unable to, he said finished lamely instead.

“That’s…not the point.”

“Suuuure it isn’t.” Sam rolled her eyes until she caught them with Danny’s. They stared for a moment before she looked away with a small mutter. The goth sighed and stopped wiping Danny’s face.

“Sorry about all this Danny. I’m just sick and tired of Dash.” She mumbled, putting the napkin on Danny’s messy plate. Before Danny could respond Tucker leaned forward an exaggerated confused look on his face and put his finger in his ear as if to clean it out. He then cupped it as a grin dominated his face.

“What did you just say? I didn’t quite hear you.” Sam was not amused.

“Don’t push it.” Tucker raised his hands in surrender and returned to his PDA. A sudden idea popped into the girl’s mind as a satisfied smirk crossed her face. “And just for that comment, back to sporks.” PDA momentarily forgotten, the techno-geek looked up, his face filled with astonishment.

“Seriously?” Sam nodded.

“Yes, seriously. Unless you want me to rant about Dash or talk about the wonders of gardening and vegetables.” Tucker blanched. Sam smirked triumphantly and turned to Danny. “I thought so. Now Danny, what is your opinion on sporks and their relation to yourself?” The halfa paused in his cleaning up, and blinked raising a finger and opening his mouth to speak. He put his hand down and closed his mouth before finally speaking.

“I would say this is one of the strangest conversations, we’ve had, but...”

“Just answer the question.” Danny raised an eyebrow.

“You know, you’re sounding like Jazz right now.”

“Danny…”

“Alright! Alright! Well…” He slumped into his hand again. He had _way_ to little sleep to be dealing with Jazz-like questions. Danny sighed. “Well, I guess as I said before, halfa’s don’t really fit in with either world like a spork can’t really entirely be used a spoon or a fork.”

“I agree that you don’t exactly fit in the Ghost Zone ‘cause for some reason every single ghost knows you’re a halfa…” Tucker started.

“Ghost gossip.” Danny interjected.

“Right, but you fit pretty well in the human world.” Danny snorted dryly before looking at Tucker straight in the eyes.

“Really? Getting no sleep each night. Almost failing all my classes. Not to mention my parents!”

“Or your lack of social life.” Tucker added helpfully.

“Thanks Tuck.” Danny deadpanned.

“No problem, dude.” The conversation wasn’t actually heading back to sporks, so Sam felt like she needed to interject before the two started talking about Danny working on cloning himself, so he could be at multiple places at once, or something of the sort.

“But Danny, you also can do more things that normal people or ghost can’t do.”

Tucker smiled. “Yeah, like defending the innocent from the big bad ghosts.” He made a serious face and started punching the air. In Danny’s opinion, he looked more like a boxer instead of ghost fighting hero.

Sam nodded with a smirk. “And defend innocent ghosts from both hunters and other ghosts.”

“But, how does that relate to a spork?” In all honestly, Danny didn’t want to agree with the spork metaphor. It was bad enough he already had twenty plus titles, he didn’t need ‘The Spork’ as another one. But alas the stars were not aligned in his favor, but the favor of his stubborn black clothed friend who had such a cocky smirk on her face that even Dash would be impressed.

Said smirk grew. “Didn’t you just say that you can eat more things with a spork than you could with either a spoon or a fork.”

Danny groaned and leaned back in his seat. “You’re really taking this metaphor too far.”

“That’s what I said!” As a quick revenge, Sam took the techno-geeks PDA, much to his disproval. “Hey!”

“Now are you going to be nice, or does Rebecca need to find a new home in a blender?” The swung the electronic teasingly over her backpack, a place where Sam knew that Tucker would never touch in fear of his life. He gasped.

“You wouldn’t do that to Shirley!” The overdramatic techno geek knew she would. They all knew she would. Sam’s unholy grin proved it. Danny still had to wonder though…

“What happened to Rebecca?” Danny asked, but he was ignored in favor of Tucker’s extremely desperate pleas.

“I’ll be quiet! I’ll be quiet I swear! Just give my baby back to me.” Sam tossed the PDA to Tucker who dove for it like it was worth the world to him which it might have had. As Tucker was cooing at the electronic (“It’s okay baby, the big bad goth will never hurt you ever again.”) Danny rolled his eyes and turned back to Sam.

“Okay let’s say that I’m a spork which side would be my ghost half then?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

“Well, the fork obviously.” The techno-geek nodded.

“That was kind of a dumb question, Danny. Even I knew that and I’m not a part of this insanity.” Danny huffed indignantly.

“Then, how does being a human relate to being a spoon!?” Both fully human teens paused in their thoughts. After a moment, Sam finally spoke.

“That’s…a good question.” Tucker smiled triumphantly.

“See, your spork metaphor’s not so full proof, _now_ , is it?” He continued to smile at her, only to end of receiving a deadpanned glare from an obviously peeved Sam holding a spork like it was knife instead of a hybrid utensil.

“Tucker, I know a good place where I can put this spork, and I know it’s somewhere you won’t like it.” She growled. The smile on his face disappeared and instead was replaced with (a very studdly mind you) look of panic before returning to his PDA. Throughout this exchange, Danny couldn’t help but laugh.

“Shutting up now.” The other two friends chuckled at the techno-geek. Said goth friend of the two paused then turned back to the hybrid, bright eyes contrasting the dark makeup around her eyes. 

“Got it! Danny’s human half is a spoon because he is able to gain perspective.” Danny raised an eyebrow and snuck a glance at Tucker who had looked up again with an unamused expression.

“Spoons can’t think.” Tucker deadpanned.

“But they are able to hold things that forks would never be able to.” Sam countered, much to Tucker’s growing exasperation. “A lot of ghosts are so focused on their obsession that they lose the ability to understand much of anything else.” She started whispering at the next part. “Danny’s human half lets him understand things like emotions and morals like a spoon holding soup.”

Both boys looked at each other with identical confused expressions. While Danny’s turned into an amused one, Tucker’s looked exasperated.

“You _really_ are trying to get this spork metaphor thing to work, aren’t you?” Sam shook her head, smirk still on her face.

“The metaphor works for me.” Danny rolled his eyes, eyeing his spork. The little thing made a completely normal (or as normal as it gets) conversation into a debate whether he was a spork or not. He mentally snorted. _Yo,ho, yo ho, a halfa’s life for me._ Danny wondered in the back of his mind how he remembered that song when he could barely remember who wrote _Romeo and Juliet._

He thought back to the conversation about his morals were like soup. If his morals were the soup then couldn’t they easily pour out? Danny’s eyes widened at the thought.

“Guys.” His two friends looked at him, their faces suddenly turning worried at his tone. The halfa gulped and placed his spork carefully down on the table. “I… uhhh.. just thought of something. If morals and emotions are the soup then…” He couldn’t continue. The maniacal laughter in his ears drowned out any other sounds around him. Danny shook his head to get rid of _him._

“Danny?” He looked up at Sam’s face. The ghost part of him sensed the fear and small bits of panic that seemed to flow off of her… well, both her and Tucker. He swallowed once more, pushing the mocking taunts in the back of his mind away.

“A spork is also a fork, but if it holds soup, then what happens to it?” He asked slowly. Both of this friends frowned.

“It stays in the spoon part.” Tucker said equally as slow. It was like Clockwork had slowed down time. Every moment you could watch as they waited in baited breath, so they could breathe normally again. Even with the frenzy that happened all around them, their little spot in the cafeteria looked to felt quiet and solemn. Danny closed his eyes, counting to ten to try to quench his fear. When that didn’t work, he let a strangled sigh and looked up at his two friends, forcing himself to say the next few words.

“But what if…” He shook his head and whispered the next few words. “What if it gets too close to the edge?” It suddenly clicked in the girl’s head to what Danny was referring to. She looked into the halfa’s eyes and saw the unmistakable look of fear that she knew haunted his nights. In the back of her mind, she thought that maybe that was one of the reasons he didn’t sleep much anymore. Sam cleared her throat and looked worryingly at her best friend.

“Danny this isn’t what I think you’re thinking is it?” Much to her distain, he slumped more in his seat. _Oh no he doesn’t! I’m not letting him get into that stupid self-guilt trap._ She thought adamantly. She would _not_ let Danny bag on himself yet again. To her, he was too great of a person to hate, so she shouldn’t let him hate himself.

Danny continued dismally. “Sam, if I’m pushed too far…” Sam didn’t even let him finish that sentence.

“Danny, stop it. You won’t become him. You stopped him, remember?” They all knew to what Danny was referring to. Dark Danny. Dan. The evil possible future that plagued the halfa’s nightmares. Dan showed Danny what he could become, yet his friends didn’t see Danny any differently because of him. In fact, they stayed closer to Danny than ever before, wanting him to remember himself and his humanity instead of the pain and guilt.

Sometimes being with him curbed his self-hatred. This was not one of those times.

Danny sighed frustratingly. “Yeah, that one time.” He looked up again, and Sam could tell that the he was trying to keep his eyes from flashing. “What if something happens and I can’t control myself?” He lowered his voice into a harsh whisper. “Accidents happen Sam and I don’t know if I can handle it if any of you got hurt because of me… or worse, gets killed because of my own stupidity!” His icy blue eyes were filled with fear of the future and the ‘what ifs’ of tomorrow. Each day was just another battle for ghost-boy.

She contemplated on touching his shoulder, but with the tension in his body, she didn’t want him to accidently attack her or something. She wasn’t afraid of him; she just knew her friend’s instincts could kick in at the worst of moments. Instead, Sam offered him a small smile. “Danny, we trust you. We chose to be here and be your friends. We’re not leaving you halfway.”

Tucker nodded. “Yeah man, we’ve got your back until the very end.”

“That’s just it! You guys shouldn’t have to! You guys should be worrying about homework and when the new _Doomed_ expansion is coming out, not worrying.” He stopped and lowered his voice to a hiss. “Not worrying about whether or not you’re going to be alive the next day! I.. I just don’t think it’s fair.” He looked away, the energy seemingly suddenly leaving his body. The exhaustion and frustration from the last year and a half, not just the last twenty four hours, finally seemed to creep slowly into his features.

Danny closed his eyes wanting to lay on the table and sleep forever, but he knew he couldn’t. It was just one of those things about being a lone superhero, there were those up and down moments. This was definitely one of those down one. Danny sighed once more as he fell back in his seat, absentmindingly scratching at the hardened potato on his cheek.

 _I hate his hero complex of his_. Sam thought, looking at the dejected look on Danny’s face. Tucker looked to be trying to cheer Danny up, but he simply brushed off all the techno-geeks comments one by one. _He can’t understand that we_ want _to help and wouldn’t have it any other way._

After a moment, Sam gave a small sigh, making the two of them look at her. She started speaking. “Life…life... isn’t fair Danny. But look at it this way. Your ghost half is the fork part of the spork.”

Tucker raised an eyebrow. “You’re trying to use spork metaphors to make him feel better?”

Sam nodded and secretly (kind of) hit Tucker in the shins with her combat boots. She continued, ignoring his (very manly) yelp. “Just go with it.” She said to Tucker with a hiss. She turned back to Danny whose eyebrow shot up at the kick. “A fork is a tool. Like any tool it could be used for good, or for evil. Danny, you get to choose what to do, no one else.”

“Freakshow.”

“Do you want help or not, Danny?”

“I’m not asking you to help!” Tucker looked around the room to see that people were starting to stare. He looked back at his friends and put a finger to his lips, telling them to quiet down. Tucker merely intensified Sam’s glare, but with her glare people looked away once more.

“Well, too bad.” She hissed under her breath. “You’re getting help even if it kills you.”

“All the way that is.” Tucker added with a smirk. Danny looked between his two best friends, realizing that, no, they would not drop this matter even if Tucker wasn’t really into the whole spork metaphor. The halfa sighed. Sometimes having awesome best friends really sucked.

Danny leaned back in his seat once again, rubbing the area in between his eyes. His headache had intensified over this conversation. “Fine… So my ghost half is a fork which I use for good which makes me good, is what you’re trying to say?” Sam nodded and took Danny’s spork. She held up his and her own next to each other.

“Yes. There are some things a fork can do, that a spoon can’t.” She covered up the spoon part on her spork for Sam’s didn’t have anything other than salad for lunch “Forks are stronger in the sense of attacking things, but they also need to be stronger for the things they are useful for. Like your ghost half needs to be stronger in order to protect the town from other ghosts.” Danny sighed.

“How is this making me feel better?” He straightened up at Sam’s glare.

“Working on it.” She covered the pointed end of Danny’s spork with her thumb, making it look like a spoon. “As powerful as a fork can be, it can’t do everything. A spoon on the other hand has to be able to hold much more in. They hold and carry things that forks can’t. In that way, they are stronger because they are able to carry more.” She smiled uncovering both utensils that that two sporks remained in her hands. “You are both a fork and a spoon. A ghost and a human. You are able to carry everything and be strong yet still fight against the stronger things in life.” She placed her spork underneath Danny’s making the utensil thicker, stronger. She frowned.

“But because you can carry everything, you spread yourself out too thin. You hold too much. We just want to help carry the weight.” Sam looked at her halfa best friend with a look of determination. She separated the sporks once more and gave Danny his half of the two. “No matter what, we’re here for you Danny. We’re just as much of part of you as your ghost powers are.”

“You shouldn’t have to be.” He clenched the utensil in his hands. Danny could feel the thin plastic bending under his grip. If he was a spork, then was he this weak? He loosened his grip and looked at his goth friend. “You shouldn’t _have_ to support me.”

“Yeah, but these sporks are plastic, put too much weight and they’ll break. We don’t want to see you break, Danny. Everyone needs support.” She smiled. Not a smirk. Smile. “Even stupid sporks with hero-complexes like you.” Tucker nodded much to the ghost boy’s shock.

“I may not be into the whole spork metaphor, but I just gotta say this. We’re here for you Danny, spork or not.” His friends smiled at him. Worried smiles, but Danny couldn’t help but feel touched instead of guilty. He always tried to push them away. However, the more he pushed the greater they tried to hold on.

With this in mind, the halfa couldn’t figure out a way to argue against them or the spork metaphor. “I… “ He stopped and sighed, but it was a happy sigh of defeat. “Thanks guys, you’re the best.” He smiled at them, a real genuine smile, before stealing Tucker’s mashed potatoes. The teen pretended not to notice, and instead picked up his own spork and started complaining to Sam about his meatloaf once more. The goth quick glance at Danny, but was compelled to yell at Tucker when he said that meat would always rein supreme if she didn’t defend the vile Brussel sprouts

As his two friends started arguing, Danny chuckled and looked at the spork in his hand, seeing the utensil in a new light. He twirled the little bit of plastic in his hands, a small smile still on his face. _I really am a spork._ He thought, amused at Sam’s choice in metaphors. If the fork was his ghost half, the spoon his human half, the things he picked up with the fork his enemies, and the soup his morals then… the structure was his sanity.

The halfa looked back at his friends who started arguing (again) about greens versus meat. He felt a small smile grow to life on his half dead lips. _They_ were the reason why he wasn’t broken, why he wasn’t... _him._ If it weren’t for them, Danny didn’t think... no he _knew_ that he wouldn’t have survived this long.

He trailed his fingers on the tips of the pointed spork and ran his thumb on the side of the small tool. If the structure was his sanity then his friends were the material. Danny wasn’t a plastic spork, no way. Not with the friends he had. They supported him, helped him, and given him guidance no matter what. He couldn’t ask for a better support team.

The halfa looked up again, his smile growing bigger as Sam took Tucker’s PDA from him, the techno-geek yelling and jumping frantically for ‘Shirley.’ The ghost boy laughed. Then he realized he couldn’t stop laughing. Each time he tried to stop, the teen couldn’t help but think about one time after another with his friends over years. The joy, the pain, the good, the bad, everything just seemed to come out at once in that stream of laughter.

“Hey uhhh, Danny. You okay?” Danny wiped a tear of laughter from his eyes and finally tried to calm down. He breathed deeply then smiled at his two friends.

“Never better Tucker. I think the lack of sleep is getting to me, you know?” Tucker and Sam glanced at each other then back at Danny. Sam suddenly smirked.

“The spork thing worked, didn’t it?” Danny nodded. There was no use denying it. Sam looked back at Tucker with a smug expression stretching across her face. “See Tucker, sporks _are_ useful.” Tucker waved her off, grabbing his PDA from her before she could react.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re right Sam…” Tucker smirked. “But I still think you took the metaphor too far.” Sam rolled her eyes as she stabbed her nearly forgotten salad with her spork, taking a small bite of the slightly withered lettuce. Suddenly, the techno-geeks face lit up as he laughed to himself. At the confused expressions on his friends’ faces, he shared his thoughts. “I was wondering if can get your enemies to call you a spork instead of a halfa. Imagine the news anchor on Ghost Watch reporting that.”

Sam’s eyes widened, a smile and the beginnings of laugh started to grow on her face. “Or Lance Thunder for Ghost Weather?”

“Just think about their faces!” The three laughed at the mental image.

Danny, although amused had to add logic to the situation. “Yeah, if they ever get close enough to listen to a fight. They never get anything right, guys.” Tucker pouted, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Party pooper. You’re worse than Sam.”

Before Sam could give a good retort, the bell rang releasing everyone from the lunch room. Tucker ran as fast as he could from the lunchroom, dramatically running in terror as Sam ran at him in full force, her military boots clomping ominously against the tile floor. Through all this, Danny continued to smile.

As much as it pained him to admit, Danny knew he was nothing without those around him. Whether it be Mr. Lancer who gave him detention that morning, Dash who could never take a hint, Jazz who always seemed to know the right thing to say even when he didn’t want to hear it, his parents with their worried love for their misbehaving son, Val with her hunting obsession, or his best friends... His friends were what kept him together. As much as he hated to endanger them, as much as he wanted them to be as far away as possible from Amity Park and all the ghosts, as much as he hated to see them in pain… Danny knew that he could never let them go.

Amity Park was him home. His ghostly haunt. This place was _his_ responsibility and to whoever who threatened that, there was a price to be paid.

So yeah, maybe he got less sleep since the accident. Maybe, he was getting a D on a test that he could have easily gotten a B- on if he hadn’t gone ghost hunting that one night. Maybe… but the ‘what ifs’ if he hadn’t started fighting back would have been worse. Why did he fight? Because Danny was a spork like it or not, but seeing who he was now and what was to come, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

And so as Danny followed his friends down the hall to the next class. He smiled, pocketing the spork from lunch in his pocket, not being able to throw away something that related to him so much. He mentally snorted. Great, his typical day at Casper High became atypical with a conversation about sporks of all things. _But that’s life right?_ The halfa supposed, mentally.

Or at least that was Danny’s half-life.


End file.
